Two Arms Deep In a Jacket
by Remaerd
Summary: Katara is determined to get her son off the streets after becoming homeless. She doesn't need any help. Aang is a volunteer firefighter with a very different idea. When their lives become entangled, they just might end up saving each other. AU, eventual Kataang.


**A/N: Hey guys! Sorry for not updating, or really writing anything, in such a long time. School and track practice has had me absolutely swamped. But not to fear, I have not forgotten you lovelies. I will be updating my other story soon. For now, enjoy****.**

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**Two Arms Deep In a Jacket**

**Chapter One**

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As a little girl, Katara Hamasaki had big goals. With bright blue eyes, she'd talk for hours to her mother and father at the dinner table about all the things she wanted to accomplish in her young lifetime. Her older brother Sokka would sit by and give some sort of scientific _fact_ to contradict her ideas, but that never deterred her. In fact, it spurred her on.

She'd make diagrams of how she _would_ accomplish each goal too, and shove them in Sokka's face. How she _would_ jump out of an airplane, no parachute, and fly. How she _would_ become a mermaid and live with the creatures under the sea when she was older (and with her parents of course, Sokka could stay on earth and rot for all she cared). How she _would_ travel the world in _one_ whole day, in just a car, and come back to tell of her adventures.

Unlike Sokka, her parents encouraged her ideas, and for a long while, she believed that everything she set her mind to, she could do it. No, she _would_ do it, because Katara Hamasaki was a big determined dreamer.

At least until her parents were killed in cold blood murder, right in front of her face. That's when all her dreams became shattered memories of a childhood long lost.

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The brisk wind and rain fused together to make for the perfect chilly early winter storm. Frost coated the grass surrounding the 24 hour _7 eleven_ and the parking lot was still empty except for Katara's blue rusty car in the back and a few employee cars. Shoot, the sun wasn't even up yet. But Katara was. She was wide awake in a lit up bathroom, washing her face and gazing into the murky glass window people call a mirror.

Katara hated gas station bathrooms. In fact, she had a strong urge to go to congress and suggest they be made illegal until they are thoroughly sanitized. But congress wouldn't give a fuck about what she had to say. A homeless, twenty-seven year old, single mother, raising an eleven year old son, had very little value in their eyes. She had very little value in her own eyes.

She drew closer to the mirror, staring at what she'd become in the past ten years. Crow's feet are getting more pronounced around the edges of her eyes due to sleep deprivation, as well as under eye wrinkles, making her look older than she truly is. She snorted. To think there was once a time when men gawked openly at her for her beauty in high school, feels like a faraway dream. Her blue eyes are now dull, her tan skin that used to glow is now a dusky gray, and her long wavy brown hair has strands of gray shining through.

She is a complete mess.

Sighing, she goes over to her backpack near the toilet and lifts the twenty pound thing up onto her shoulders. It feels as if it weighs more than her. It probably does.

A scream jolts Katara away from her thoughts, and before she knows it she is barreling out of the bathroom door and looking for her son.

"Tenzin!" She knocks profusely on the heavily wooded men's bathroom door. "Tenzin! Sweetie! It's mommy! Are you okay? Open up!"

She was not in favor of using separate bathrooms; she did not want to ever let him out of her sight. But of course, the one time she allows him to go by himself, she loses him.

"Mom…?"

"Tenzin!"

Katara spins around at the voice, darting her eyes all over the place until she comes face to face with her son. She charges toward him, falling to her knees and grabbing him by the shoulders.

She looks him dead in the eyes, as serious as can be. This could've been a life or death situation, easily. Tenzin needs to know that. "Tenzin, where did you go? Why didn't you tell mommy where you were going? What have I told you about not telling mommy where you are going?!" She frowns and shakes him, trying to knock some sense into his head.

Her baby boy doesn't know what he's doing. He's so young and innocent; he hasn't been exposed to the badness of the world quite like Katara has. He hasn't seen a person smile in his face and then spit in his eyes. He hasn't been hurt like that before, and it's up to Katara to not allow that to ever happen to him.

Fear shines in his gray eyes, before they fall down to the tiled floor. "I'm sorry mom." He shuffles his sneaker clad feat anxiously. "I didn't mean to scare you, I was just—"

"No Tenzin," she cuts in sharply, "there are _no_ room for excuses. Just…" She sighs and closes her eyes before continuing, "Just promise me to not do this again."

Tenzin nods meekly, his guilty eyes still downcast. "I promise."

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Getting Tenzin to school early is one of the only things that make Katara feel like she's somewhat of a responsible parent. By getting him to school on time, he's able to eat breakfast, something she is unable to provide him right now. God knows he needs it. The growing boy is nothing more than skin and bones lately, much like his mother. His once smooth porcelain skin has even turned a shade of bleak pale as of recent months.

It's time like these though, when the sun is just rising and glistening off of the pond directly in front of the middle school parking lot, that Katara thinks about sending her son to live with his father, Jet, in Kai City, who is a successful lawyer but for some reason can't pay child support and gets away with it too. The name causes an upturn of spiteful emotions to rise within her stomach, and she feels as if she's going to throw up the stale breath she had days ago. No, Jet is _not_ an option. She _refuses_ to resort to _that_ level.

If one were to look up manwhore in the dictionary, Jet's name would appear in all capital letters. Jet is the absolute definition of a charming devil manwhore. His good looks and bad boy attitude won the hearts of dozens of girls in high school, including Katara's. Her junior year, their second year of publicly _dating_, is when she got pregnant with Tenzin. She wanted to drop out of high school once she was noticeably pregnant, but Sokka was having none of that.

She got ridiculed daily. Names like slut were passed around for her to hear when in all honesty Jet was her first and last boyfriend. Teachers turned their noses up at her, and she went from an A student to a C student rather quickly. Her athletic scholarship was snatched from her fingers when the dance coach forced her off the team. All she had left then, was singing, something she was really good at, and that too was taken from her. Why? Because pregnant girls make the team look sloppy.

Jet remained captain of the school's football team, and even won prom king in senior year. Katara won prom queen, but there was no applause until the teachers threatened the students to clap. It was an empty gift, and she spent most of the dance bawling her eyes out in the elaborately decorated bathroom girls bathroom, and wondering why the hell she showed up in the first place.

A few weeks after prom, Tenzin was born. Jet and Katara had a huge argument over what to do with him. After taking one look at him, his defenseless small chubby frame and wrinkly face, Katara knew she wouldn't trade him for anything in the world. Jet relented and promised to be of support.

And he was for the first eight years. He was very supporting, and Katara felt very fortunate. But things did not last. Soon Jet started inviting mystery women into his apartment instead of keeping his sex life away from Tenzin like they agreed, and Katara was having none of that.

It was a very depressing time for her. For eight years, it felt as if she had a family once again. Sure it wasn't the ideal situation, but she felt… happy. Whenever Jet dragged in one of his ventures for the night, reality was harshly thrust into Katara's face. They were no sweet family, and would never be. She was just the mother of his accident, as he had worded during one late night.

Katara knew when she was not welcome, and left Jet's apartment as soon as possible. Roku City seemed like the perfect place to go for a new start, and of course new starts are sadly never easy.

"Is this going to be permanent ma?"

Katara snapped her eyes open to look at her son in the passenger seat. "Is what going to permanent sweetie?"

"This." He gestured around the rusty car that Katara tried to keep in mint condition. "Living in here."

"Of course not. This is just temporary. Before you know it, we'll be back in our apartment." Katara reached over and ruffled up the boy's short curly brown hair with a smile.

"They know ma," Tenzin said quietly after passing seconds of silence.

Katara raised an eyebrow. "Who knows what?"

"The kids at school, they know I'm homeless. They make fun of me about it too," he confessed, refusing to meet his mother's blue imploring eyes. "They know," he whispers.

Sometimes words really break Katara's heart. She tries so damn hard to protect her angel, but all she ends up doing is looking pathetic. Like an unfit mother.

She doesn't have all the answers and she doesn't know where they'll be next week. She doesn't have enough money to buy Tenzin better clothes, and they will most likely be spending tonight in a homeless shelter because the weather is getting too unbearably cold. And it's not fair. Not for Tenzin. He did _nothing_ to deserve this.

"Sweetie I'm so—"

A loud bell cuts Katara off, and Tenzin is stripping off his seatbelt and kissing his mom's cheek before she can even acknowledge the tears in his eyes.

"It's okay ma. I know it's not your fault." He forces a smile and wipes at his eyes before getting out of the car.

It's only when he's really gone that Katara cries and prays for a miracle.


End file.
